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New Charlie Hebdo cartoon stirs controversy

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French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has been criticized as racist over a new cartoon

It suggests Alan Kurdi, a 3-year-old migrant who drowned trying to reach Europe, would have grown up to be a molester

Europe has been rocked by a wave of mob sex assaults on New Year's Eve blamed on migrant men

(CNN)After a year in which it has never been far from the headlines, French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is back in the news again -- this time for a cartoon that critics say pushes its provocative brand of humor too far.

Titled "Migrants," the cartoon's text reads: "What would little Aylan have grown up to be? (A) groper in Germany." (When the picture first surfaced, government documents called him "Aylan," but the child's father has told CNN his name was Alan.)

The cartoon references the unprecedented spate of mob sex attacks that was reported in Cologne and other European cities during New Year's Eve celebrations, which saw hundreds of women report being sexually assaulted or robbed by men of North African or Arab appearance.

Racist and offensive?

The cartoon sparked an immediate reaction on social media, with many labeling it offensive and racist, and many questioning whether the masses of people around the world who tweeted #JeSuisCharlie in solidarity after the January 2015 attacks would feel the same way in light of the cartoon.

Maajid Nawaz, chairman of London-based counterextremism think tank Quilliam, argued in Facebook posts that critics missed the point of the cartoon, and others in the issue, as a critique of fickle European attitudes to migrants.

"Taste is always in the eye of the beholder," he wrote. "But these cartoons are a damning indictment on our anti-refugee sentiment."

Lightning rod for controversy

It has long targeted politicians, public figures and religious symbols of all faiths. But in recent years the publication has gained an international profile for drawing violent blowback from Muslim extremists angered by its irreverent approach to their religion.

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Even before the killings of January 2015, the magazine had been targeted by Islamists. In 2011, the magazine's offices were destroyed by a gasoline bomb after it published a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed.

In 2006, it had reprinted controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that originally appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten -- a move French President Jacques Chirac called an "overt provocation."

"They've got the weapons -- screw them, we've got the Champagne!" it read, depicting a man gleefully quaffing wine as it poured out of holes in his body.

Charlie Hebdo's cover responded to the November 2015 terror attack in Paris.

Speaking to CNN French affiliate BFMTV in 2012, Charlie Hebdo journalist Laurent Leger said the magazine did not intend to provoke anger or violence.

"The aim is to laugh," he said. "We want to laugh at the extremists -- every extremist. They can be Muslim, Jewish, Catholic. Everyone can be religious, but extremist thoughts and acts we cannot accept."

"In France, we always have the right to write and draw. And if some people are not happy with this, they can sue us and we can defend ourselves. That's democracy," Leger said.

"You don't throw bombs -- you discuss, you debate. But you don't act violently. We have to stand and resist pressure from extremism."